Fabrizio Fastest in Final Qualifying

By Henny Ray Abrams | 5/30/2009 11:56 AM

Ducati Xerox's Michel Fabrizio topped final qualifying in advance of this afternoon's Superpole session at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah.The Italian lapped the 3.05-mile short course in 1:49.204 mins., an improvement of 1.25 secs. from his Friday qualifying time.The lap time was .125 secs. faster than that of Jakub Smrz (Guandalini Racing Ducati) and a substantial .569 secs. better than the best of Yamaha's Ben Spies, the third fastest rider in a session that wasn't nearly as competitive as the first. The top 15 riders were on the same second Friday and only the top eight were on the same second today.Aprilia's Max Biaggi was one of the few riders not to improve on his Friday time. The Italian finished with the fourth best time on the strength of his Friday performance.Then came a trio of Hondas led by Ten Kate Honda Racing's Ryuichi Kiyonari. Hannspree Ten Kate Honda teammates Carlos Checa and Jonathan Rea were sixth and seventh, respectively.Ducati Xerox's Nori Haga was a shadow eighth and comfortably in front of ninth fastest Fonsi Nieto, the Spaniard riding the Suzuki Alstare Brux machine in place of the injured Max Neukirchner.Celani Race Suzuki's Karl Muggeridge was tenth fastest.Jamie Hacking qualified for Superpole on the Kawasaki, fellow American Jake Zemke didn't. Hacking finished with the 11th fastest time that was only .039 secs. faster than he'd gone on Friday. Zemke didn't improve his time-he was .243 secs. slower-and will start Sunday from 23rd on the grid.

Abrams is the longest-serving contributor at Cycle News. Over the course of his 35-some years of writing and shooting photos, he’s covered events from MotoGP to the Motocross World Championship - and everything in between.